Can't watch the video right now? You can read the transcript below:

Hi. My name is Mauri Castle Myers. I am a couples counselor. And today I want to talk about Implicit Memories.

So we all know that we have a kind of narrative memory. The kind that allows you to kind of play things back almost like a video tape. Where, for example, I might remember that I went to coffee with a friend of mine last weekend. I might remember what we ordered or what we talked about, or where we met. And that is really useful, right, because it is often helpful to go back and go. “oh! Okay. I think or feel this way because these things happened in my life.”

However, we also have another kind of memory. This is called Implicit Memory. We start storing these memories from the time we are born, maybe a bit before. And, um, they turn into a kind of general knowledge. But they operate really in the background. If you have ever had a gut instinct, that is probably an implicit memory. It is a point at which your body really tells you, or your brain in a kind of amorphous, non-specific way, that something should or shouldn’t happen. For example, if you are a person who has not had a lot of trust in your life, who has had your trust violated repeatedly throughout your life, you are probably going to have a really hard time trusting your partner. Even if, your explicit memories, or the narrative of your relationship, is that your partner is trustworthy. You are still going to feel strongly that trusting people is not a good idea. And you probably aren’t going to be able to say, ‘Oh! It is because of this one time where this one thing happened to me.” And maybe you will, but you are also, even if you do have that memory, you are still going to just feel in your gut, that that is a bad idea. And when your partner turns to you and is like, “I don’t understand why you won’t just trust me” it is going to be hard to just override this feeling that you are holding on to.

So, in couples work, I spend a fair amount of time explaining this, but also that both of these things are true. Right? If your partner is trustworthy and has worked really hard to earn your trust, that is true. Right? But also, this feeling inside of you that something is absolutely 100% important and valid and real, that is true too.

What is tricky with implicit memories, is that you can’t just talk them out of themselves [laughs]. You can’t apply logic and reasoning to them, unfortunately, and have them go away. It is not how they work. The way to combat implicit memories that is giving you information that is no longer valid in your life, is to create new memories. To basically overwrite the old ones by creating new experiences so if you are a person who has difficulty with trust you are going to have to create experiences in little ways where you start trusting people and having your trust be received in a positive way. And the more and more you do that, the more it will overwrite these other experiences that are difficult, that tell you, “No, no, no. Don’t do that, no matter what your brain says. Do not do that thing.”

So I think this is useful, and valuable to all of us, in a lot of different ways. Because I think that we have all had experiences where what we think and what we feel are kind of at odds with each other. And if we can recognize that it is Implicit memories, there is a real, logical, physiological reason why this is so difficult, why change is difficult for us, then I think it can make it just a little bit easier. My experience in working with couples is that if I can help explain this and a person can say, “yeah, this is just how I have been feeling, given,” maybe, maybe it is not our past history, maybe it is that things have been rough or rocky in our relationship for a while “and it is just hard for me to not just gear up for a fight whenever we start talking about this thing or whenever this other thing happens.” I find that it can be really useful to give each other and ourselves just a little bit of compassion. Compassion goes a long way. Gives us just a little bit of acceptance that this is where we are at, this is what we are struggling with. [deep breath], and that can make it that much easier to make the changes that we really want to make.

Couples who come to see me generally are distressed in some way about the condition of their relationship. This might feel like a lot of sadness or hopelessness, or it might be a lot of anger, frustration and blame. It often feels like they can’t talk to their partner anymore and that whatever they try they can’t seem to fix what feels broken in their relationship.

When faced with conflict with someone who is important to us, we all have default strategies that tell us how to handle it. These are shaped by our personalities, our life experiences in general, and our experience in relationship with the person. While these strategies are unique to each person and the situation, they tend to fall into a couple main categories. What’s more, people tend to be in relationship with someone of the opposite type. This can be really confusing and make our partner’s responses easily misunderstood.

Part of the work my clients and I do together is to define what is health for them. While the answer is a little different for each person, a large part of it usually has to do with growth of some kind or another. If you imagine a tree, growth is a good marker of health. It is the same with people. So, it is important to know what elements are needed for optimal growth. And, often what this boils down to is a balance of structure and flexibility.

What sometimes happens is that when we guess what they might be thinking or how they might react, we don’t give them the chance to tell us how they feel or to even have their own reactions. We might believe that they are upset or don’t support us when this isn’t the case.

However, some times it can begin to feel as though we are these things that others or ourselves have labeled us. Sometimes the concepts we are using to describe ourselves aren’t broad enough and don’t allow for the complexity of our experience, or allow us to be our whole selves.

If breaking up is really what a person has decided, this will come out in counseling and I won’t try and talk them out of it, but rather I will help them figure out next steps. However, if instead, there is a part of them that had given up hope because they weren’t sure it was possible to have the relationship they really wanted, it is likely that the process will help them to find that hope and to help them build the relationship that they really want.

Latest Posts

Couples who come to see me generally are distressed in some way about the condition of their relationship. This might feel like a lot of sadness or hopelessness, or it might be a lot of anger, frustration and blame. It often feels like they can’t talk to their partner anymore and that whatever they try they can’t seem to fix what feels broken in their relationship.

When faced with conflict with someone who is important to us, we all have default strategies that tell us how to handle it. These are shaped by our personalities, our life experiences in general, and our experience in relationship with the person. While these strategies are unique to each person and the situation, they tend to fall into a couple main categories. What’s more, people tend to be in relationship with someone of the opposite type. This can be really confusing and make our partner’s responses easily misunderstood.